Bitcoin came close to $87,000 on Friday after buyers pushed through a heavy band of sell-side liquidity near $85,000, triggering more than $120 million in BTC short liquidations over the past 24 hours.
TradingView data cited by Cointelegraph showed BTC/USD rising to $86,857 on Bitstamp before pulling back below $86,000. The move marked Bitcoin’s highest price since Sept. 23.
Buyers clear the sell wall around $85,000
The advance followed a fresh shift in exchange order-book liquidity. According to onchain analytics platform Glassnode, a concentration of sell orders around $85,000 had kept price action rangebound through the week, but buyers eventually broke through that barrier.
Glassnode wrote on X, 「With reduced ask liquidity above, this should allow price to move up faster,」 and added that the remaining sell orders 「seem to have been removed.」
Earlier in the week, Cointelegraph reported that more than $30 million in sell orders had appeared around $85,700. After the breakout, CoinGlass heatmap data showed a cluster of potential liquidations above $87,300, indicating that liquidation exposure had shifted to higher price levels.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin short liquidations over 24 hours totaled $122 million. Across the wider crypto market, total liquidations stood at $210 million.
Glassnode says ETF inflows would strengthen the breakout case
In the latest edition of its regular newsletter, The Week Onchain, Glassnode said the area around $86,000 remains important because it forms the aggregate breakeven zone for investors in US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The firm said a sustained breakout, backed by higher trading volume and renewed ETF inflows, would offer stronger confirmation that Bitcoin’s uptrend has broader support.
ETF flows have cooled since Sept. 21, when daily net inflows reached $999 million, the highest level in almost a year.
Glassnode wrote, 「The funds are still buying, but at a small fraction of the pace of those two days. A return to inflows near that pace would be the clearest sign of renewed ETF demand.」
According to Farside Investors, US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $102.7 million on Oct. 1. The largest fund, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), attracted $195 million, while outflows from several other funds reduced the daily total.